Komikazen – International Reality Comics Festival

Komikazen International Reality Comics Festival is an annual festival for non-fiction comics organized by Elettra Stamboulis and Gianluca Costantini and sponsored by Mirada Cultural Association. The first edition took place in 2005 in Ravenna, Italy with special guests Phoebe Gloeckner, Joe Sacco and Marjane Satrapi.

This year the event took place in Rimini from May 20-22, as part of the Design Biennale.

Special guest was Diala Brisly, Syrian illustrator based in Beirut. She is working on children’s books that are distributed in Syria, to show children that there is more in life than war, and show them positive things. In Libanon she is painting wall and tents in Refugee Camps, involving children in the act of painting.

Drawing the Times’ editor in chief was invited to give a presentation about the platform and have a talk on stage with our collegues of the Italian platform Graphic News. Elettra Stamboulis interviewed us about the importance of graphic journalism.